When Your Mind Won't Stop, Try This | Vinny Ferraro

If you've ever felt like your inner life is a clenched fist — tight belly, buzzing chest, racing mind — this conversation is for you. In this live session from our DanHarris.com http://danharris.com/ sangha, the great Vinny Ferraro takes us on a kind of "return to the body" safari: soft-belly practice, heart-work, nervous system regulation, forgiving the seemingly unforgivable, and what it actually means to stop becoming and just be here. We also get into the weirdness and power of meditating together online, the comparing mind (yes, the Dalai Lama has one too), why walking meditation is a secret weapon for restless brains, and how both Dan and Vinny were dragged, kicking and screaming, into practices they once thought were total BS. Vinny brings his trademark mix of streetwise honesty, humor, and deep tenderness. This one is about learning to meet yourself — and the world — with a little less armor and a lot more care. Join Dan live every Tuesday at 4pm ET for these weekly meditations and Q&As — plus access to all our guided meditations — by signing up at DanHarris.com https://www.danharris.com/. Related Episodes: You Can't Hate Yourself Into Becoming a Better Person | Vinny Ferraro https://www.danharris.com/p/you-cant-hate-yourself-into-becoming?r=4o5o&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false How to Make Time for the Things You Actually Care About | Vinny Ferraro https://www.danharris.com/p/how-to-make-time-for-the-things-you?r=4o5o&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false Join Dan's online community here http://www.danharris.com/ Follow Dan on social: Instagram https://bit.ly/3tGigG5, TikTok https://bit.ly/3FOA84J Subscribe to our YouTube Channel https://bit.ly/3FybRzD Thanks to our sponsors: Airbnb: Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.com/host http://airbnb.com/host. Bombas:  Head over to bombas.com/Happier http://bombas.com/Happier and use the code Happier for 20% off your first purchase. To advertise on the show, contact [email protected] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/10HappierwithDanHarris

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:05Dan Harris?

  This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris.

• 0:19Dan Harris?

  Hello, everybody. How we doing? Today, it's a brief, funny, and very useful conversation with the Dharma teacher, Vinny Ferraro, who's a fan favorite and a favorite of mine. We talk about how to handle stress with curiosity instead of judgment, whether it's possible or wise to cultivate compassion for people who've done real harm in the world, how to meditate when you can't sit still, how to meditate without striving or overthinking, and the surprising power of meditating with other people, even online. What you're about to hear is a recording of one of our weekly live sessions that we do over on danharris.com. These sessions are for our paying subscribers, but we're dropping this one for free. As you'll hear, it starts with a quick guided meditation called a soft belly

• 1:02Dan Harris?

  practice, which is great for calming your nervous system. And then we take your questions. So if you don't want to meditate right now, you can just fast forward through that. If you do want to meditate, do that, and then you can listen to the questions. Dealer's choice. By the way, if you want to come to our weekly live meditation and Q and A sessions, you can sign up over at danharris.com. We do them every Tuesday at 4:00 PM Eastern. Our next one is on December 2nd. It will be me and our December Teacher of the Month, Jeff Warren. All right, we'll get started with Vinnie Ferraro right after this.

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• 2:31Speaker 03

  So we do like 10 minutes?

• 2:33Dan Harris?

  Whatever you're feeling. If you feel like you want to go longer.

• 2:36Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:37Dan Harris?

  All good.

• 2:40Speaker 03

  So my invitation is to let your attention turn inward. If you want to close your eyes, it's a good way to do it. If you want to just soften your gaze, it's another way to do it.

• 2:52Speaker 03

  But just let awareness fill your body.

• 2:58Speaker 03

  Feel your feet on the floor.

• 3:02Speaker 03

  Contact with the chair or the cushion.

• 3:10Speaker 03

  And don't try to meditate.

• 3:14Speaker 03

  Just arrive.

• 3:23Speaker 03

  Just rest.

• 3:35Speaker 03

  And we welcome ourselves into the present moment.

• 3:40Speaker 03

  The first thing we do is soften any demands we have on this moment being a certain way.

• 3:53Speaker 03

  Or this self being a certain way.

• 4:15Speaker 03

  We feel this body with all its sensations, being supported by the floor, furniture.

• 4:35Speaker 03

  Obvious places of tension or holding stretch out the shoulders and neck. Anywhere you hold tension, sometimes the jaw.

• 5:08Speaker 03

  As we pay attention to this body, there's this breathing that's been happening for a lifetime.

• 5:20Speaker 03

  You don't have to visualize it or imagine it.

• 5:26Speaker 03

  Really, how does the body know that it's breathing from the inside out?

• 5:41Speaker 03

  You might feel the rising and falling of the belly or the chest.

• 5:51Speaker 03

  Or the airflow at the tip of the nose and the nostrils.

• 6:02Speaker 03

  The invitation is to get curious about this phenomenon.

• 6:19Speaker 03

  You don't have to fix it, or manage it, or control it, but just know the breath, just as it is.

• 6:49Speaker 03

  Sometimes it's helpful to put your hand on your chest to feel that life stirring

• 6:56Speaker 03

  inside us right now.

• 7:18Speaker 03

  We bring that same curiosity to this heart.

• 7:30Speaker 03

  Not an idea of it, or a concept, but what's the felt sense of this caring heart of ours?

• 7:51Speaker 03

  What's right here, right now?

• 8:07Speaker 03

  Maybe the tenderness, or resistance.

• 8:18Speaker 03

  Maybe you can't feel anything at all.

• 8:31Speaker 03

  We don't have to force anything to appear, manufacture anything.

• 8:38Speaker 03

  But can we just meet the heart exactly as it is, in this very moment?

• 9:08Speaker 03

  Sometimes it can feel like a lifetime of always wanting it to be different. Let me drop that.

• 9:17Speaker 03

  For this moment.

• 9:24Speaker 03

  Let whatever it is belong.

• 9:40Speaker 03

  Maybe it's quiet, maybe it's heavy.

• 9:45Speaker 03

  But we just drop the argument that it should feel otherwise.

• 9:59Speaker 03

  Whatever is there deserves to be met with care,

• 10:06Speaker 03

  like we would anyone we love.

• 10:14Speaker 03

  So we listen to that part of our experience.

• 10:57Speaker 03

  Así que respiramos directamente a esta dimensión de nuestra experiencia y decimos: "OK, ¿cómo podemos encontrar esto con el cuidado?" Si es difícil ahora mismo, es compasión.

• 11:14Speaker 03

  Tantos aspectos del cuidado.

• 11:30Speaker 03

  Nos descansamos en la verdad, que ahora mismo es así.

• 11:37Speaker 03

  El corazón es así, el cuerpo es así, la mente es así.

• 12:10Speaker 03

  La voluntad de estar con nosotros mismos.

• 12:17Speaker 03

  Tal vez coraje. Y esa fuerza constante que nos permite estar con la experiencia.

• 12:29Speaker 03

  ¿Qué es más necesario para ti?

• 12:46Speaker 03

  A veces, la gratitud se desborda.

• 13:05Speaker 03

  Just notice what's here. We don't have to have the mind complicated.

• 13:14Speaker 03

  If it's all allowed and nothing was turned away, nothing left out.

• 13:31Speaker 03

  What heart quality is accessible right now?

• 14:10Speaker 03

  And then we let that be enough, the sincerity of the invitation, right? Wherever it leads us, we say, "Okay, I surrender."

• 14:21Speaker 03

  And I care about whatever arises.

• 15:00Speaker 03

  We carry this kind of care with us throughout our days. Any moment we need to come back, feet on the floor.

• 15:11Speaker 03

  Breath in our body and on our belly, our hearts, and we reach out and say, "I'm right here."

• 15:41Speaker 03

  And when you're ready, leaning back out into this shared space,

• 15:49Speaker 03

  and noticing, how does awareness change with the presence of others?

• 15:57Speaker 03

  What happens?

• 16:01Speaker 03

  I like to keep meditating, even though my eyes are open. Sometimes I open and close them. It's good to play with awareness, because awareness is always aware of something.

• 16:11Dan Harris?

  Yeah.

• 16:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, thank you.

• 16:15Dan Harris?

  Thank you, Becky. Great job. What's your answer to that question? How does awareness change if you're meditating with other people?

• 16:23Speaker 03

  It depends, right? Sometimes I see others. It's like, whoa, all of a sudden, there's distance. Sometimes there's great connection, where I'm like, wow, look at his house mirrors. You know? Now with this, is like 650 eyes looking at us? Well, I guess it's 1,300. So here we are in this little box, right? And we know that there's hundreds of people listening.

• 16:50Speaker 03

  And so what does that do to awareness? It makes it very kind of precious, right? I'm like, oh, my God, we've got to make sure this is good.

• 17:02Dan Harris?

  In the Dharma, there's this emphasis on, you know, the three jewels, the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. The Buddha is the Buddha, the Dharma, the teachings of the Buddha and the Sanghas, the community. What's your sense? Is online community a distant second place to in-person or what?

• 17:23Speaker 03

  Well, you know, that's like saying, well, what meditation is the best? How are you going to compare these things? You know what I mean? What have we learned after COVID? Cause I never did online stuff. You gotta be in the room. It's like, yeah, but how about if we couldn't be in the room? COVID taught us that like, oh shit, no, it's not the same as in-person. But just like every practice bears a different fruit. This kind of interaction bears a different fruit. So I try to not compare it so much because a lot of us don't maybe live in San Francisco or New York or, you know what I mean? So the accessibility opens up. Can I feel connection through these little windows? And the answer, definitely yes.

• 18:07Dan Harris?

  Yeah.

• 18:08Speaker 03

  I was kind of relieved. I was like surprised because I never liked this kind of technical stuff until I was forced to. So like usual kicking and screaming toward my own liberation, you know?

• 18:22Speaker 03

  You've been looking in screens for decades, bro.

• 18:24Dan Harris?

  I think one way broadcasting, which I did for a long time and was reflected in my interpersonal communication style is not the best for this. And I do, I do think there are massive power to in-person, which is why I've tried to organize more in-person events over time. But there are massive logistical hurdles. You can't do it every Tuesday afternoon. So just doing it digitally is really helpful. I find these sessions incredibly enjoyable personally.

• 18:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, you know, when the mind's not in the way, right? Because the comparing mind just arises, right? They said even that's the last fetter to break. The last link in the chain is comparing mind. And that was relieving to me to think that the Dalai Lama is sitting there like, you know what? This cat next to me, I'm not sure, man. You know what I mean? Like even him, we're in good company. You know, that's not like some, uh, some kind of penalty. It's like, oh, the comparing mind, of course. So I'm comparing this to in person. I'm like, well, I'd rather be able to get you in a headlock. That'd be nice. You know what I mean? Same room. I try to not compare it too much and try to see how much the accessibility

• 19:40Speaker 03

  that's changed everything because, you know, I do a lot of work at the end of life stuff. They can't be in the room. It wouldn't be be responsible for us to be in the same room. It's opened up so much and even the work in the prisons. Now we could talk to people that are on the other side of that wall. It's brought a lot of gifts to my life.

• 19:59Dan Harris?

  A lot of people are saying in the comments that they don't think of this as digital, like this really is their Sangha. I love to hear that. That's what gets me out of bed. That's what I want to do. So I have some questions for you from the Sangha. I might mangle the pronunciation of this, so apologies in advance, but I think it's Cage Smith. Please have VF talk about soft belly practice from one who consistently has a tough belly.

• 20:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, man, that's my wheelhouse, bro. Thanks for teeing that up. I mean, you know, I don't know about you, but I really felt

• 20:35Speaker 03

  the bracing against life, just moving to my world, moving to my days. When Stephen Levine started talking about soft belly, I was just like, are you out of your mind? What are you talking about? Because, you know, we come from this world where it's like six pack abs and, you know, everybody's armored up. And I had no idea how the nervous system really follows the belly softening. So when we talk about the armoring that naturally happens in life, particularly if you've had a hard run of it, how do we let that all float in something softer? Right? That's really the key. It's not that I have to push away these difficulties.

• 21:17Speaker 03

  It's more like, okay, can I be a bit broader in my awareness and how I'm holding things? And say, okay, I don't have to have my guard up so hard. Can I just let myself feel a little bit more? And can it be held with care? Like, that's a big question for me is like, can I allow it? So sometimes we'll lose someone we love, or somebody has a brand new baby, or somebody gets married, whatever the event is. Where's my belly in this? So I'm in the habit of reaching to my belly because that's kind of like the seat of my practice. So usually if I'm sitting, there's a point in every sit where I reach out to myself.

• 22:02Speaker 03

  As a way to connect with that part of myself, it kind of lands me in the body. And I feel the softness. It doesn't matter what tightens my belly up. So can I come back home and just soften even a little bit? I felt a great release of what Stephen used to call unattended sorrow. What I noticed, Dan, is when I started allowing that to be there more, I had more access to joy, more access to happiness. Because when we armor up those parts of our hearts, it's not just the difficulty that we keep out, right? So soft belly has been a 30-year practice for me.

• 22:45Speaker 03

  And some days it feels possible. And other days, I just have to let the hardness float in something softer.

• 22:55Dan Harris?

  I'm curious, when you say the belly, are you using that as interchangeable with the body? Or is there something specific about the belly?

• 23:05Speaker 03

  Well, I think the belly holds a lot, a lot stored in the belly. There's a lot of nerves, even just call it the second brain in the belly.

• 23:16Dan Harris?

  Yeah.

• 23:17Speaker 03

  So that's where I mostly feel things. When something changes for me, I can feel the breathing stop. I can feel the belly tighten. I have a lot of awareness about my belly just from practicing. And so I am using them interchangeably, but I don't usually feel those things in my legs, my arms, my hands, even my feet. My feet are unaffected. So the way I practice with my feet is just that fundamental okayness of touching the floor. I probably do that at least a dozen times a day.

• 23:50Dan Harris?

  Good.

• 23:50Speaker 03

  Where I'll be moving faster than I want to move. And then I'll say, hold on a second. I just sit down and I just feel that, not the story, not the concept, but what's the felt sense of my feet touching the floor? It's like, oh, I gotta kind of remind myself, you're actually okay right now. It's like, oh, cool. All right, begin again. You know what I mean?

• 24:10Dan Harris?

  I, I, I agree about the arms, legs and feet probably not being where you're storing, or at least for, at least for me, where I'm storing my stuff. But I do feel a lot of it in the chest, you know, like a swarm of bees in the chest or sort of like a separating wound in the chest, a couple of inches north of the solar plexus or the heart. So for me, it's not just the belly, although I would agree the belly is incredibly potent spot.

• 24:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, I, I'm not using it interchangeable with the body, but I am using it interchangeably with the trunk.

• 24:44Dan Harris?

  Okay.

• 24:46Speaker 03

  Cause, cause I do have a lot of sensations in the heart that's higher and even in the throat. Right? Sometimes when my anxiety comes up, that's where it comes. Right? So here I am, here's this feeling and can I tend to it? The first part for me is I would think this is not mind. And I'm not the origin story of anxiety. So then I open up, okay, how many beings know this feeling? Billions. Okay, now, now I'm in the presence of Sangha. Right? That's, that's the route for me on how I deal with fatigue when it arrives in the body.

• 25:26Dan Harris?

  It reminds me a little bit of, are you familiar with the work of Kristin Neff?

• 25:30Speaker 03

  Oh, of course.

• 25:31Dan Harris?

  For people who don't know her, she's really the godmother of self compassion, which isn't an ooey gooey concept. It is a rich field of study for psychologists. She is a researcher at the University of Texas in Austin and she has this kind of three part strategy for dealing with hard moments like anxiety. The first is to just be mindful of it. Oh yeah, yeah, this is anxiety. This sucks. The second is to call to mind what she calls common humanity. A billion people are probably feeling exactly what I'm feeling right now. I'm in the presence of Sangha. And then the third is, can you talk to yourself the way you would talk to your kid or to a good friend? And you know, this can be accompanied by a hand on the, on the chest or the belly.

• 26:14Dan Harris?

  And I found it to be, I had a lot of resistance, just like you said before, being dragged, kicking and screaming toward liberation. It seemed cheesy and with all of my sort of male of a certain age conditioning, I was like, fuck that. I don't, I'm not, I'm not doing any of that. But it really is helpful as much as I hate to admit it.

• 26:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, man. I mean, I lived it for years. I just sent rays of hate toward the teacher. I was like, I hope you can feel that.

• 26:46Speaker 03

  Because I'm sending something toward you. Yeah, literally, I was just hating it. And then that ended up being what actually helped. That's what released so many, yeah, a lifetime of holding. So, you know, it's always the same, right? And that's why eclecticism is so dangerous. Cause you know, oh, I want to chant with the Sufis and I want to break bread with the Krishnas. I want to like hang out with the Buddhists. And I was like, yeah, as long as I pick and choose, I'll always cherry pick around what's actually going to transform me. You know what I mean? Because I just don't want to do what's uncomfortable. That's why any path, you want to do the completeness of it. There's nothing wrong with being inspired by other paths,

• 27:30Speaker 03

  but I just see like whatever you're doing, just do the whole thing. That way you get the benefits that actually have that transformational quality.

• 27:40Dan Harris?

  If you're gonna eat a burrito, eat the burrito.

• 27:41Speaker 03

  The whole thing, bro.

• 27:42Dan Harris?

  Yeah. I feel you. Joyce Fisher has a question. Joyce says, I'm struggling with staying focused in my meditations, which in turn fuels my skeptic mind to not do it. I know the benefits of meditation, but the story I find myself telling is, I'm too stressed to meditate, which obviously feeds the anxiety. Suggestions? I always love Vinnie's perspective and I can relate to him so much. I am confident you guys will help me.

• 28:12Speaker 03

  This is Mara, right? This is the mind appearing real again. You have this intention and then the mind's like, ah, this is too much, right? It's such an immersive experience, thinking.

• 28:30Speaker 03

  It's so convincing and it's all about me.

• 28:35Speaker 03

  That's how we know you're, you know, we're really mired in delusion at that point. Right? So as long as we make practice optional, there'll be a thousand reasons to not do it. It's like, I had a hard day. I had a great day. I don't even need to meditate. Like we're trying to fix something, right? So for me, it's like, okay.

• 28:58Speaker 03

  Can I hear those thoughts and show up anyway? Can I actually just say, all right, I'm stressed. I actually need this more than anything else is to just rest my nervous system for a few minutes. That would be a great gift to someone that's stressed out and just arrived. And that's why I always try to start with, don't try to meditate. Stop with all the striving. Just let yourself rest in your own awareness. Right? Just for a few minutes. It does wonders. But as long as we believe the thoughts, then we're kind of lost. We're lost in the world of the mind where nothing is ever enough. Yeah?

• 29:44Speaker 03

  How do you do it when you don't want to sit?

• 29:49Dan Harris?

  Well, it depends what the perceived obstacle is.

• 29:53Speaker 03

  Let's think. Joyce was talking about stress. So what do you do? I could imagine you have some stress, Dan.

• 30:02Dan Harris?

  Yeah, I have a little bit of stress sometimes, not right now, but I don't have that problem. I'm 16 years into this thing. I know that if I'm stressed, it's mindfulness bell to go sip. It's more like, oh, today I've run out of time, or I'm too tired, or I'm too physically restless, because I get a lot of physical restlessness, which is one of my little bugaboos. So in those scenarios, I allow myself to do a different kind of meditation. Walking meditation is great when you're tired or restless. I don't really ever quote unquote, let myself off the hook, not because I'm kicking my own ass to do this thing, although I have had those stages in my practice, but more because

• 30:44Dan Harris?

  I've done it long enough to know that when I don't do it, my inner dialogue is just so much more obnoxious.

• 30:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, I love the walking instruction too, you know. You ever heard, do you know that Buddhist, she was a German nun, Iyakima?

• 30:59Dan Harris?

  I've heard her name, but I don't know her.

• 31:01Speaker 03

  Oh, bro. Well, she had a phrase that I used in my walking and it just changed everything. That was another thing I just thought was bullshit. You know, I was like, oh, walking, cool. You know, you're on these like 16 hour a day meditation retreats and it's like, oh, you get to take a piss, grab some tea, grab a cookie, you know what I mean? And then 10 years in, I was, dude, you're only doing half the retreat. So I read these words from Iyakima. She would take a step and have a little mantra. And there was like three steps, basically. And I was like, nowhere to go, nothing to get, no one to be. Nowhere to go, nothing to get, no one to be. And my awareness would become

• 31:45Speaker 03

  panoramic in a certain way, because it wasn't Vinnie trying to be a good Buddhist and walking in nature or whatever I was doing. I wasn't shrouded and or tainted with identity and self. It allowed awareness. There's nowhere to go. There's nothing to get here. There's no one to be. It was very profound for me.

• 32:05Dan Harris?

  I've heard it rendered as nowhere to go, nothing to do, it's already here.

• 32:12Speaker 03

  I like that, too. Yeah, I think the no one to be for me is that that's the linchpin. That's the one, you know, there's so much stuff in here. So I like that the becoming piece is just so exhausting.

• 32:27Dan Harris?

  Say a little bit more about that. That is a bit of a Buddhist term of art, becoming. What does it mean to you?

• 32:35Speaker 03

  You know, in some sense, it's like postponing arrival. Cause I'm always coming something, right? I'm going to become a teacher. I'm going to become more compassionate. It's always down the road a bit, right? So there's this delusion baked into it because it it's reaching for something that's not here. Right? So I'm becoming anytime I can let myself off that hook. It's like you said, with how you heard that I a chemical. It's already here, right? So no one to be is pointing at the same thing. That's a great kindness that we give to ourselves. And I'm not on my way somewhere. I'm right here.

• 33:20Speaker 03

  If the dogon said, if the truth is anywhere to right here, it's setting the compass to right here. Not when I finish this retreat or when I find the right teacher or when I shit every day. That's when it's going to be on. It's all bullshit. It's three card mountains. It's like, holy shit, man. I'm running game on myself. Okay.

• 33:41Speaker 03

  Come back here, right now. Here we are.

• 33:47Dan Harris?

  You said that there's no one to be and it's already here, kind of pointing to the same thing. Another phrase that for me at least seems to point in that same direction is the meditation instruction that Joseph Goldstein has been using recently. What is being known?

• 34:02Speaker 03

  Hmm, yeah. I mean, Joseph, man, what a gift. This, this, this.

• 34:12Speaker 03

  This. What is being known, right? That's kind of a little bit of the same flavor of how I tried to end the meditation around, like, what is awareness aware of, right? Cause it's always here of something, right? And so there's something about just allowing ourselves to stay current because it's always fresh. Awareness is always being aware. And I love that. Thanks for sharing that, bro.

• 34:41Dan Harris?

  It's a pleasure. Let's see if I can sneak in another question or two. I do want to make one quick comment. Rhonda commented that sometimes gearing down our nervous system in order to sit is difficult, especially for people with ADHD. And I just wanted to highlight for you, Rhonda, that that is very real. This is why I'm a big proponent of walking meditation for people who really have a lot of trouble sitting still. It can be a great warm up practice. It can be a great supplementary practice. It can be something you do instead, and it's not cheating. It's not recess. It's not, I mean, it's, it's, it's real practice. So it's not something you need to feel guilty about. Stacy writes, I love Vinny. No question, just wanted you to hear that.

• 35:23Dan Harris?

  Maria writes, Vinny, how can we have compassion and develop forgiveness for evil doers? This is a tough one for me.

• 35:34Speaker 03

  Who is that not tough for? You know what I mean? Like, evil doers, that's really, really difficult, right? So someone who's actively doing harm, let's say, right? Because I'm not sure I believe in evil. I've been working in prisons for decades and I have yet to find the evil. But I think people do a lot of unskillful things and very desperate, you know? And I myself have done very bad things. So how do we rectify that in this boundless freedom and heart space that we're exploring? I try to go back to myself and say, all right, I know that every time I've done harm,

• 36:19Speaker 03

  it's been out of my own pain and out of my own confusion. Yeah? So it wasn't malicious. And so I imagine that that's what it's like, that everybody's doing their best now. It's so hard to believe, right? Like, I could believe it in a principle. And then I see what people do in the world and it's like, damn, I cannot believe that is your A-game player.

• 36:44Speaker 03

  You know what I mean? It's really hard to believe. Even for the parts of myself, because that's where I want to, I want to start there and I want to like raid that out. The parts of myself that I've done harm. Are they forgivable? And a big part of the forgiveness practice is to separate the actor from the action. Some acts, unforgivable. But can we look at the actor and say, right, this is a confused person that spilled their pain out on me, or me them. And I know what that's like. I've been on this path a while, and I still make incredible mistakes all the time. I just came from my father's 80th birthday this weekend.

• 37:29Speaker 03

  And my therapist was like, all right, man, how are you orienting toward this weekend? You've been a complicated person for me, you know? And I said, well, I wanna go there and I wanna celebrate my freedom in the face of this complicated person. I do love my pop, and I wanna celebrate him, and I wanna stay in that. Now, did I find myself in a momentary lapse of reason and have him in a headlock at one point? Yes. And then I woke up halfway through the headlock, and I said, oh, emancipation, freedom? Okay. Sometimes I can be very forgiving and very open, and other times I feel tighter.

• 38:13Speaker 03

  And I try to see, what am I clinging to? What is the story that is sponsoring this suffering? Right? Oh, they shouldn't be like that. They shouldn't do that. Well, that's true. But what am I contributing right now energetically to this world, to this body? So I try to get in touch with that. Can I, can I care about that? You know, harm being caused, is that natural for me to be compassionate toward the people involved? Yes. I shared a short one with you about my wife a little bit. We're living in Oakland, and somebody got mugged on our street.

• 38:53Speaker 03

  And they, uh, they snatched a pocketbook and then they hit the woman with a hammer. She got taken away by the hammer. So my wife was in the bedroom crying and I went in there and I said, look, she's gonna be all right. She says, look, I'm, uh, I'm thinking about the person that hit the person. You know what I mean? What does it take to do something like that to somebody? Sometimes the othering that happens with evil, as we call it, it's like, can I find those diluted parts of myself, those desperate parts? Cause that was the scariest thing in my life for me is when I lost to my own goodness. Whenever I dedicate the merit at

• 39:36Speaker 03

  the end of the sit, it's always the same. It's for all beings in all directions without exception. They remember their goodness, but maybe they remember their belonging, right? Cause if we know that we belong to each other, it's really hard to do harm. So I try to keep that in mind. My wife helps me.

• 39:59Dan Harris?

  Well, your wife sounds incredible and I've been influenced in this regard by Father Gregory Boyle, who also incredible. Uh, I'm not a big Christian, but, uh, I'm not a Christian at all, actually, but Father Gregory Boyle is an amazing person, deeply influenced by the Dharma and runs the largest organization that works with current former gang members in Los Angeles. And he says that he does not think in terms of good and evil. He thinks in terms of healthy or unhealthy. I think there's a Native American or indigenous, uh, expression, like somebody who does harm is somebody who has no relations. You have to

• 40:37Dan Harris?

  feel really cut off and be isolated and armored to hit somebody in the head with a hammer or to do some of the shit we're seeing in Washington right now. That doesn't mean you don't resist it. That doesn't mean you let a guy with a hammer hit somebody. You can take affirmative action. It just doesn't have to come from the othering and labeling as evil. None of this is a recipe for passivity or quietism or resignation. It's just an orientation inwardly and outwardly that allows you to act fueled by something cleaner burning than hatred.

• 41:18Speaker 03

  Well said, bro. And I love Gregory Boyle's work, man. Homeboy Industries was just, what a beautiful offering. Yeah.

• 41:33Speaker 04

  Anything else in your mind that's worth talking about before I let you go?

• 41:42Speaker 03

  Yeah. I think it come out of the doubt and it said, you know, I'll just pull it up because it's a lot better than I'll say it out.

• 41:51Speaker 03

  The liberated soul it talks about, right? Liberated is the soul which sees all human behavior as either an act of love or a call for love.

• 42:03Speaker 03

  How do I understand what I'm witnessing in the world? What am I gonna contribute? Right, so you're contributing in your own way. I'm contributing in my own way. I hope whoever asked that question, we're trying to, this is a big old seesaw that we're involved in here. So as much as we're seeing, we want to do that much on the other side. You know, the ancient law is hate doesn't cease by hate. Right, all our exemplars said this. So what does it really mean to call somebody in? Even in our imagination, right? Ram Dass used to have picture of Trump on his altar. That's the advanced course, right?

• 42:51Speaker 03

  You remember the story about Sharon in India? She almost got abducted. He was with Meningeji and she finally shows up and he goes, what happened?

• 43:01Speaker 03

  She goes, you know, I had to fight somebody to get here to try to take me. And he said, I hope you hit that person over the head with your umbrella with all the love in your heart.

• 43:13Speaker 03

  And I love that, you know, because it's not passive. It's like, look, man, this is a really big old world that we live in. And can I find the places in me that I've done wrong? And can I really bring some more goodness into this world?

• 43:37Dan Harris?

  You're the best. We've never had this many people come to one of these paid subscriber sessions. I've never seen as many hearts emojis. I know I'm not supposed to be inflating your ego, but you're great. So I appreciate you.

• 43:50Speaker 03

  Thank you so much, Dan. It's a real pleasure to hang out with you again, bro.

• 43:55Dan Harris?

  Someday we have to meet in person.

• 43:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, man. First headlocks on me, bro.

• 44:04Dan Harris?

  All right, I'll hold you to that.

• 44:07Speaker 03

  To be continued in ways we can't imagine, yeah?

• 44:10Dan Harris?

  Exactly. Thank you for doing this and thanks for everything you're doing for us and for the world.

• 44:15Speaker 03

  Thank you, Dan. Take good care, bro.

• 44:17Dan Harris?

  Thank you, everybody. Thanks again to Vinnie. Love that guy. Don't forget, if you want to come to our weekly live meditation and Q and A sessions, you can just sign up over at danharris.com. If you sign up, you'll also get guided meditations that come with our full-length Monday, Wednesday episodes. The idea there is that you learn a lot, hopefully, listening to the conversation, and then we give you a guided meditation to deepen your understanding. Finally, thank you so much to everybody who works so hard on this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson and Eleanor Vasili. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Cashmere is our executive producer. And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme.

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